Perfect Month

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Louis McKenzie wasn’t born superstitious. It was thrust upon him when he was eleven years old. Up to that point, his childhood had been normal, with the occasional bumps and bruises, but most days he enjoyed life growing up in a loving home with great parents, and an okay younger sister.

One day, he was in his front yard playing with his best friend, Tyler Mentz. Both boys were the same height, with Louis having black hair and Tyler red. They had been buddies ever since the Mentz family moved in next door when both boys were in kindergarten. In the summer there was hardly a day that went by where they weren’t hanging out at one of their houses. Like most kids, there were times when they didn’t get along too well, even fighting one time. A week of being grounded by their parents, and not being allowed to play together, made them realize how much they liked and missed each other. It was a friendship that would last a lifetime.

It was a sunny afternoon in the middle of summer when Louis was introduced to the practice of superstition. They were in Louis’s backyard playing a cop and a robber. It was Tyler’s turn to be the robber while Louis the cop tracked him down. He did find him and was about to put his play handcuffs on him, and haul him off to their imaginary jail, when both noticed a penny lying in the dirt.

To most eleven-year-old boys, finding money, no matter how small the amount, was like discovering a priceless artifact worth a million dollars. Louis bent over to fetch the penny when Tyler grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“Hey, let go!”

“No, you don’t want to do that,” proclaimed Tyler.

“I do, too,” he protested. “That’s probably a long-lost penny from a treasure chest. We’ll be rich!”

“No, look at it,” Tyler declared. “It’s tails up!”

“So?”

Tyler looked at his friend with big wide eyes and explained, “My grandpa told me to never pick up a penny when it’s tails up. He said it’s bad luck.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“Oh no, I’m not,” Tyler almost shouted. “I’ve been with him when he’s found a penny. He always looks at it to make sure it’s heads up. That’s the only time he’ll pick it up.”

This was new information to Louis, and he was instantly interested in the details. So, he asked, “He just leaves it there if it’s tails up?”

“No, he said you’ve got to turn it into good luck,” explained Tyler. “He would flip it over to heads up and leave it for the next person to pick up. That way it brings good luck to both of you.”

“I’ve never heard anything like that before,” he declared as he pondered if there was any truth to what he was being told.

“I know, but my grandpa swears it’s the truth,” offered Tyler. “He knows a lot of neat things like that.”

The two boys stared at each other as they tried to decide what to do. It was simply too tempting to leave a treasure like that in the dirt, but neither one of them wanted bad luck. Finally, Louis said, “I know. You turn the penny over and I can pick it up coz it’ll then be heads up.”

“Oh no, I’m not gonna touch it,” Tyler protested. “I’ve done seen it tails up. I’m not gonna have it put a spell on me.”

This didn’t suit Louis. He wanted the penny. Reaching down he snatched it off the ground and held it up toward the sky to take a good look at it.

“Oh, man, you shouldn’t have done that,” warned Tyler.

“Your grandpa’s an old man,” smirked Louis. “What does he know?”

Tyler started slowly backing away from his friend. “Where are you going?” asked Louis.

“I don’t want to be near you if you’re bad luck,” he declared.

“Then you might as well go on home,” Louis huffed. “I don’t want to be around you either.”

The boys parted ways while Louis stuffed the penny into his pants pocket. He stood thinking for a moment, trying to decide what he wanted to do. With Tyler gone he was left with playing by himself and there wasn’t much of anything he liked doing alone. Then he noticed the play house in the big oak tree that his father had made for him. It was the home of his and Tyler’s secret club.

Deciding to hang out in the tree house until dinner, he started climbing the makeshift ladder of large nails driven into the tree. He was almost to the door when his right foot slipped. Losing his balance, he fell backwards and landed with a thump on his side. He wanted to yell from the pain, but no sound came out as the impact had knocked the breath out of him. Tyler heard the crash and came running back to check on his friend.

He was laughing until he realized Louis was hurt. “Are you okay?”

“I think I broke my arm,” Louis moaned once he had regained his breathing. “Get my mom!”

“Okay.”

While running toward the house he yelled back at his pal, “I told you it was bad luck to pick up that penny!” At that moment, the life of Louis McKenzie changed forever. No longer would he tempt fate. He would develop a fear of the unknown. Every move would be calculated to avoid anything that could repeat what he had learned from a tails up penny.

Throughout his teenage years and into adulthood, he held on to any superstition that came his way. Even if they made no sense to him, he was willing to do what was necessary to avoid bad luck and have the invisible powers-that-be bless him with good fortune.

One of the first ones he learned was “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” He was mortified to learn he could hurt his mom by doing something so simple. Then, one day, he heard a girl in the neighborhood singing, “Step on a line, break your father’s spine.” That was it. He did his best to avoid stepping on cracks in the flooring, and especially on sidewalks. There was no way he was doing anything to hurt the parents he loved.

At school, he learned from a student in his math class the importance of knocking on wood. Anytime he made a bold statement, or seemed assured of himself, he would be sure to say, “Knock on wood.” He didn’t want to anger the spirits residing in the trees, but instead, hoped they heard him and would bless him would good fortune.

Louis was about seventeen when he was having dinner at a restaurant with his parents and sister, when his mother spilled some salt while trying to season her baked chicken. An elderly lady sitting across from them saw what had happened and told his mom, “You need to throw some salt over your shoulder.” His ears perked up when he heard what the lady had said. After they returned home, he immediately researched this new information and learned he needed to throw the salt so it would hit and ward off any evil lurking near him due to the bad luck of spilling salt. What a revelation.

He learned to be careful and avoid breaking any mirror. As careful as he was, he did break his sister’s compact mirror one time. There was no way he wanted to face seven years of bad luck.

Trying not to panic, he carefully collected the broken pieces, went out to the backyard, dug a hole, and buried the glass under a tree.

Then there is the matter of black cats. He avoided them like the plague. To Louis, if one walked in front of him, it was a sure sign of death. When he saw one, even if it was a block away, he would walk or drive out of his way to make sure it didn’t cross his path. There was no need to take an unnecessary chance.

The list of superstitions that ruled his life was long. From staying at home, mostly in bed, on Friday the 13th, to never walking under a ladder, never killing a lady bug, not opening an umbrella indoors, and any other belief he would hear. To ward off the bad and bring him good luck, he wore a cross necklace, had a horse shoe hanging over each door in his house, always on the outlook for a four-leaf clover when he was outside, carried a rabbit’s foot in his pocket, along with a silver mercury dime.

Those precautions gave him a measure of comfort, but he led a restrained and guarded life. It was life, but he didn’t feel it was living, at least, not the way he saw other people living theirs. He had too much fear of the unknown. Then there was Mildred Van Dorn. She was short with long blonde hair, and a contagious smile. They were coworkers who instantly had an attraction for each other. It wasn’t long before they were dating. She had a calming effect on his life. It made him appreciate the good things. She was so much better than any rabbit’s foot or four-leaf clover. He called her “Millie,” and she called him “Louie.”

Tyler became the third wheel when Millie entered Louie’s life. He and Louis would always be best friends, but as is usual in such relationships, he was sometimes on the outside looking in. Being a happy-go-lucky type of person, he was fun to be with, but he did have a mischievous side. The adult Tyler wasn’t scared to pick up a tails up penny. In fact, he wasn’t afraid of much at all. Millie became friends with him, too, even though sometimes she thought his antics went too far. She liked him enough to introduce her cousin, Sadie Van Dorn, to him. It wasn’t long before they were an item, and both couples enjoyed double dating with each other.

It was on one of their dinner dates right after New Years, they found themselves waiting on Louis to arrive at the restaurant. They sat at a table and passed the time with small talk until Tyler brought up Louis’s obsession with superstition.

“You say he’s late getting off from work, but we all know why he’s running late,” Tyler declared with a hint of impatience.

“What are you saying?” asked a truly bewildered Sadie.

Millie looked at him with dismay and asked, “Why do you want to make a big deal out of that? We all know how he is.”

“Yeah, I just don’t think he cares how much he drags everybody else down with his quirks and rituals he has to do,” Tyler announced.

“You’re wrong about him,” she bristled. “He does care. It’s just that he can’t help himself. Besides, why are you complaining? You’re the one that got him started.”

“Yeah, but I never thought he’d take me that serious,” Tyler shot back. “Hey, I was just a kid. I got over it, so why can’t he?”

Sadie was perplexed and asked, “Are you saying Louie’s really not working late?”

“No, he’s not,” Tyler answered. “He’s got this ritual he has to go through every day after work. We know he does it, so I don’t know why he wants to act like we don’t.”

“Have a little heart, will you,” Millie said. “He tries to act normal, but he can’t force himself to be that way, and he’s embarrassed about it.”

“He’s afraid,” offered Tyler. “Fear rules his life.”

“What’s he afraid of?” asked Sadie.

Millie and Tyler both said at the same time, “Bad luck.”

“I didn’t realize he was that way,” Sadie declared. “He acts so normal.”

“Yeah, in public around other people, maybe,” Tyler asserted. “He’s got good over the years of hiding it.”

“Sometimes, I do worry about him,” Millie offered. “He makes it work, and I’m happy to be with him, but I wonder how much of it holds him back from being truly happy.”

“Oh, he’s never been happy since that day with the penny,” declared Tyler. “I mean, he laughs, jokes and appears to be okay, but deep down inside him is a miserable scared little boy.”

“Well, thank you for that diagnosis, Doctor Mentz,” smirked Millie. Then, as an afterthought, she said, “I do wish he could have some days of just being normal. Maybe it would be enough to show him he can live without all those superstitions hanging around his neck. I know it would do him well.”

“I hate that for him. He’s such a sweet guy,” offered Sadie. “Of course, you know in Catch 22, Joseph Heller wrote: ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.’”

This was enough to make everyone laugh and turn the conversation to everyday matters. It wasn’t long until Louis joined them, and they had a wonderful dinner together as good friends do. After finishing their meals, they were enjoying each other’s company so much no one wanted to leave.  Millie and Sadie shared some juicy gossip about one of their cousins, and then turned to trivial matters. They were about to call it a night and leave when Tyler mentioned an article he had recently read.

“They call it ‘the perfect month,’” he declared.

The idea of something being perfect definitely drew Louis’s attention to it. “How is February perfect?” he asked.

“Well, you know it has twenty-eight days, except for leap years,” explained Tyler.

“Go on.”

“So, seven days in a week makes for exactly twenty-eight days in four weeks, which is a February month,” he continued. “Now, in this part of the world, our week starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday. So, every few years, the first of February will fall on a Sunday, which means, the last day of the month, the twenty-eighth will be on a Saturday. For that month you have four perfectly aligned weeks running Sunday through Saturday. That makes a perfect month.”

“It’s perfect,” breathed an awestricken Louis.

Sadie chimed in, “I remember studying about February in a history class. The old Roman calendar used to have ten months for a year. That kept throwing the calendar off because it didn’t match the number of days it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun. The seasons would get out of whack. Then, Roman king Numa Pompilius added January and February to the calendar.”

“So, how did February get short changed on days?” asked Millie.

“The Romans believed even numbers were bad luck,” she explained.

“They were?” asked an intrigued Louis.

“That was a long time ago and the Gregorian calendar we use today has been changed quite a bit since then,” she continued. “Anyway, King Pompilius tried to make all the months end on an odd number, but he couldn’t work it out. So, he picked February to be the one month that ended on an unlucky even number, thus the twenty-eight days.”

“Wow!” is all Louis could say.

“The King even went further and made February the month for Romans to honor their dead,” she declared. “I guess he figured why not choose the one month that ended on an even number. If you’re going to be unlucky, you might as well go all the way.”

“So, is February lucky or unlucky?” Louis wanted to know.

“Oh, it just a regular month,” Tyler quickly asserted. “It’s only those years when the weeks are perfectly lined up like a rectangle. Then you have a ‘perfect month.’”

“When does it happen?”

“If I remember right, it happens six years after the last one, then eleven years, then eleven more, or something like that.”

“That is awesome!” Louis declared as he couldn’t hide his excitement. There were very few things that could be labeled “perfect” and here one had been staring him in the face all along. He had to ask, “When’s the next one?”

“Next month.”

On the drive home that night, Louis was unusually quiet. Millie knew he was deep in thought about February and what it might all mean. She loved him and hoped something about what they had learned that night could be put to use to bring him some relief from his infliction. Laying her hand on his shoulder, she stated, “You’re thinking about the perfect month.” He smiled at her and didn’t answer.

Over the next few weeks, he was busy trying to decide if the perfect month would protect him from the evils lurking in the shadows. Was it possible the perfectly aligned month could bring enough good fortune that it would overpower all the evilness that usually existed. He felt it was quite possible, as the month stood on its own and wasn’t connected to all the other things that could bring bad luck. Being independent just might be what was needed to have a whole month of freedom from worry.

It was hard for him to concentrate on much else, but he had to work, spend time with Millie, and do his regular routine around the house. So, by the time the end of January came around, his nerves were almost frayed. As weary as he was, his spirits were somewhat lifted because he was on the threshold of the “Perfect Month.”

Millie came by early in the morning. The sun was out. It was warm with a southerly breeze, and it was Sunday, February the first. She had stopped by Burger King and bought them a couple breakfast croissants.

Sitting across from him at the table, she felt compelled to ask, “Louie, what are you going to do today?”

He took a sip of coffee and replied, “I’m going to test things.”

“How so?”

His eyes widen and he actually smiled when he answered, “The first thing is I’m going to step on a crack.”

Millie was amazed. She had never seen him this bold and willing to defy the superstitions he had lived with for so long. “May I join you?”

“Absolutely.”

Standing on the sidewalk, they stared down at a big, beautiful crack in the concrete. She looked at him. He nodded, and then quickly tapped his shoe on the crack. Millie held her breath as they looked around to see if any harm was headed their way. Louis listened intently for sounds of someone’s mother screaming because of a broken back. There were none.

With the biggest grin on his face, he touched the crack again with his foot. Nothing happened. So, he stood on it with both feet. Still nothing. Laughing, he started jumping up and down on the crack. Millie joined him and they jumped and jumped and then moved to the next crack and started again. They were enjoying themselves, laughing and jumping with no bad consequences, and only stopped when a car drove slowly by with the family inside staring at their antics.

“Oh, that felt good,” bellowed Louis.

“I’m so proud of you, Louie,” Millie cried as she wiped her tears and gave him a kiss. “What do you want to do now?”

He replied, “Watch this.”

From his pocket, he pulled out a handful of pennies. Millie was shocked, and asked, “Are you sure?”

He nodded his head and threw the pennies into the air. They fell and scattered over the yard. Taking a deep breath, he marched over to the first one. It was heads up. The next one was, too. Then, there it was: A bright new penny lying in the grass tails up.

Millie grabbed his hand and held it tight. He slowly bent down and snatched the penny off the ground. They stared at each other with eyes as big as saucers. Nothing happened.

Louise couldn’t control his emotions and started laughing and crying at the same time. It was a wonderful day. The first of twenty-eight perfect days.

“Come on,” he said as he started walking to the back yard. There on the back porch steps lay a hammer and a woman’s compact box. It was open with a mirror in full display.

“Stand back,” he directed as he grabbed the hammer. Without much thought, he raised it, and with a grunt, brought it down on the mirror breaking it into pieces. Once again, they stood in silence for a couple minutes to see if any bad fortune was coming his way. There was none.

Millie threw her arms around his neck, kissed him, and declared, “You’ve done it!”

He kissed her back and blubbered, “It’s a perfect month!”

They kissed again and then she whispered, “Let’s go inside and celebrate.”

“I’ll race you.”

A perfect day in a perfect month with two lovers enjoying perfect love. The only regret Louis had was not knowing years ago about what good luck February could bring.

Everyone who knew Louis was amazed and delighted at how much he had changed in that first week. Most people never receive such adulation from simply acting normally, but everyone liked him and was thrilled to see him truly enjoying himself as an ordinary member of the human race.

Toward the end of the week, Tyler called Louis. “Hey man. Look, Sadie and I are planning on going up in the mountains on the last weekend of the month for a skiing trip. Would you and Millie want to go with us?”

The old Louis would never entertain the possibility of travelling on narrow, snow-covered roads up the side of a five thousand feet mountain to go skiing down a hill on two pieces of wood. Now, he was interested. “I think I would like to go. Let me talk to Millie.”

The second week of the month was very much like the first. Louis never imagined he could feel so good by acting normal. The weight of all his fears had been lifted and he was having the time of his life. Then came Friday.

It started off as usual, with him waking up at six, showering, dressing, and eating a bowl of cereal. Precisely at seven-thirty, he marched out of his house to start his car and head to work. As he strolled down his sidewalk, he stopped to look as there in the grass lay a penny. He thought it must have been one left over from when he had thrown them in the air on the first day of the month. Without hesitation, he bent down and picked it up, barely paying any attention to the fact that it had been lying tails up.

After starting his car, he slowly started backing out of his driveway, carefully looking to his left and right to make sure the road was clear. Glancing at the digital calendar on his infotainment center, he was struck with horror and slammed on the breaks. His car lurched to a stop as he stared in disbelief. There in plain sight for all to see was the one thing he had failed to anticipate, the one flaw not included in his calculations. The perfection he believed to exist in a perfect month was tarnished by one of the unluckiest events of the year. Nothing good could come from it. How had he missed it? Today’s date was February 13th. It was Friday the 13th.

The sound of screeching tires caused him to look to his left again. He was horrified to see a car barreling toward him. It was travelling too fast for him to react and back out of its way. The out-of-control vehicle jumped the curb, momentarily became air born, and then plowed into the driver’s door of Louis’s car. In the last moment of consciousness, the only thing that registered with him was the loud sound of metal impacting and being torn apart.

The next thing he became aware of was a voice. It was muffled and sounded far away, but he heard it. He had no sense of time, but he saw an IV bag hanging beside his bed. It held a steady drip, and he fixed his attention on it. To the side of the bag was an unfamiliar face looking down at him.

“Well, hello Mr. McKenzie,” a soft and gentle voice said. “Welcome back.”

He struggled to focus, and was only able to mutter, “Were am I?”

“You’re in the hospital,” the voice replied. “Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine. You got banged up pretty bad, but with time you’ll be back to normal.”

“Why?”

His vision and senses were slowly clearing, and he could see the voice was coming from a nurse. She smiled at him and answered, “I think you’re wanting to know what happened.”

“Yes.”

“Well, yesterday you were backing out of your driveway,” she explained. “An elderly man, a Mr. Leo Fieldman, suffered a myocardial infarction as he was driving down your street. He passed out and his car rammed into yours. Both of you are very fortunate he wasn’t going any faster than he was. It was bad enough as is.”

Louis tried to move his left arm but couldn’t. He glanced at it and saw it wrapped in a cast. Then he noticed his left leg. His foot was up in the air, held there by a rope and pulley. It was in a cast, too.

The nurse saw him looking at his broken limbs, so she offered, “Yes, your left side took a beating. You’re bruised quite a bit, and your arm and leg suffered fractures. Plus, you had a concussion. That’s why you’re just now waking up. But, look you survived and with physical therapy you’ll be back to normal in a few months. You’re a lucky man.”

“Where’s Millie?”

“Oh, she and your two friends went down to the cafeteria for dinner,” she responded. “They’ve been gone about an hour, so they should be back soon.”

“Is the old man okay?”

“He’s in a room on the cardiac floor,” she answered. “I know he didn’t get hurt in the wreck too much, but how he’s doing with his heart, I don’t know.”

Louis swallowed hard and muttered, “Okay.”

“Mr. McKenzie are you feeling much pain?” the nurse asked.

“No, I feel fine,” he replied. “Please, just call me Louis.”

“All right Louis. I’m Doris and I’ll be with you through the night shift,” she offered.

The door slowly opened with Millie, Tyler, and Sadie peering inside. When they saw Louis was awake, they rushed in with big smiles on their faces.

“Oh, Louie, you’re awake!” declared Millie as she hurried to his bedside. “Are you able to talk?”

“Yes, I can,” he replied as she held his right hand.

“Man, you had us worried,” Tyler inserted.

“Some good news, though,” offered Sadie. “I saw the elderly man’s wife down in the cafeteria and she said her husband should make a full recovery. Mrs. Fieldman asked me to tell you they’re so sorry you were on the bad end of the wreck.”

“Yeah, it was just one of those unfortunate things,” shrugged Tyler.

Louis smiled weakly and stated, “I’m glad he’s okay.” Then, no longer able to hold his emotions in check, he sobbed, “I didn’t see it Millie! It was staring me in the face, and I didn’t see it.”

“See what, Louie?” she asked as she tried to comfort him.

“Yesterday was Friday the 13th,” he revealed. “How did I not see an unlucky day like that?”

“Things happen, buddy,” Tyler proclaimed.

“Yeah, I thought it was the perfect month. Nothing bad was supposed to take place. Now, look at me,” Louis grumbled.

Doris had finished changing his IV and was about to leave when she stopped and said, “Oh, you’re talking about February.”

“That’s right,” agreed Tyler. “This year had the perfect month.”

“All the weeks are even,” adding Louis. “It makes the month look like a rectangle.”

“Yeah, it does,” Doris offered as she nodded her head. “But, you know, every perfect February that starts on Sunday has a Friday the 13th in it.”

“And Friday is part of the calendar and part of the month, so it wasn’t protected by the perfect month,” declared Louis as he felt his blood pressure rising. “I’m such an idiot!”

Tyler shook his head and declared, “So, nothing’s perfect.”

Doris looked at each one of them to make sure they weren’t pulling her leg with some lame gag. When she realized they were serious, she offered, “Well, that only applies to places like the US where Sunday is considered the first day of the week. Other parts of the world, like Europe, have Monday as the first day.”

“How do you know all that?” Louis asked.

“Oh, after high school my parents arranged for me to go and live overseas for six months,” she explained. “I spent half of that time in France. I didn’t pay any attention to their calendar until I started a part-time job toward the end of my stay. That’s when I looked and saw Monday was the first day of the week. It caught me by surprise.”

“So, if I understand this right, next year, February will be a perfect month in France as the first will be on a Monday,” surmised Tyler. “The thirteenth will be on a Saturday. No Friday the 13th.”

“That would be perfect,” breathed Louis.

Doris scratched the side of her head and asked, “Do you hold onto superstition?”

“It rules his life,” Millie quickly stated.

“I’m able to pretty much control things, so I usually avoid bad luck,” added Louis. “That is, until yesterday.”

“I think everybody has a superstitious thought now and then,” offered Doris. “Of course, Louis, you can live your life as you so choose, but if you’re allowing superstition to dictate what you do, then you’re ignoring some of the best parts of living.”

“If I don’t do what I can to avoid them, then I get hurt, I mean, look at me,” Louis declared. “I know others can do what they want, but I can’t. I’m cursed that way.”

“Well, you can get help for that,” Doris declared. “When I was in college studying nursing, I was under a lot of pressure to succeed. It was almost too much. I developed attention deficit disorder and had to seek help. So, almost every week I saw a therapist and it helped me more than I could’ve imagined.”

“That’s not for me,” Louis declared.

“I think Louie is afraid people will think less of him if he does get help,” Millie offered. “They’ll look down on him.”

“They will,” he admitted.

“Oh, I had feelings like that, too,” stated Doris. “But, when you’re sick, you’re sick. I mean, look at you now. You’re lying there in bed all banged up and in a cast. I don’t think anyone thinks you’re weak cause you’re in a hospital. You’re injured and you need medical help. The same is true when it comes to our mental health. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“People can see me all banged up, but they can’t see my ill brain,” Louis objected. “They don’t understand.”

Doris smiled and looked at him over the top of her glasses, “I know some are that way. Doesn’t that just show they’ve got mental issues, too? I bet your girlfriend, and your other two friends understand. They’re here in this room cause they’re concerned about you, so it doesn’t appear they look down on you. Look, it boils down to what matters the most to you. Is it those folks who might or might not approve of you seeking therapy, or is it you getting better and enjoying good mental health? Like I said, the choice is yours, but I think the lady here and your friends would be in your corner and would love for you to feel normal again.”

“Doris is right, Louie,” Mille declared as she bent over and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. “I love you, but I do wish we could be a normal couple.”

Sadie chimed in and said, “Louis, it won’t be a quick fix, but you’ll feel better and better and eventually you’ll be one happy dude.”

“Hey man, I’m not one to tell you what to do,” offered Tyler.

“Since when?” laughed Louis.

“All right, maybe once or twice, but you can do this,” laughed Tyler. “You’ve got the will power of two people. Go for it.”

Louis studied the faces of his friends and the nurse. He knew they were right. It was time. He’d carried a heavy burden since he was eleven and now it was time for him to let people help him carry it.

“Doris, can you recommend any doctors that I could see?” he asked with a sigh.

“I’ll go get you a list right now,” she replied with a smile. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

They all laughed as she left the room. Millie was beaming with pride at how brave her man was and how the future could be brighter than she had dared to dream.

“Louie, I’m so proud of you,” she declared holding back her tears.

“I’m going to need lots of help,” he stated.

“I know, and I’ll be there every step of the way,” she said.

“Just think, Louis, this time next year, you’ll be amazed at the progress you will have made,” Sadie offered. “Take it one day at a time.”

He smiled and offered, “Well, then this time next year we’ll have something to celebrate.”

“Yes, we will,” agreed Millie.

Grinning he said, “So, we can go celebrate next February, oh I don’t know, how about France?”

“Louie!”

THE END